Notice my post and my reference was to the book Passage to Power and I referenced what the author stated. This is not a political discussion, this is a forum on books. "What Book are you currently reading?"

Further, this is a book of enormous historical stature.

I did not infringe on copyrite by directly quoting the book, simply gave the author's view. Authors such as Larry Swedrow, John Bogle, and many others.

I answered Valuethinkers question based on commentary from the author, nothing more, nothing less, other than to state that this was a very powerful book.

Here's an oldie, The Odyssey, by Homer. This is a Greek classic written about 3,000 years ago. It's amazing a story this old and rather lengthy survived. I'm hearing all these names that adorn cities and streets everywhere, and now I know where they came from. Good story.

MP173 wrote:Notice my post and my reference was to the book Passage to Power and I referenced what the author stated. This is not a political discussion, this is a forum on books.

Obviously, I'm not a mod, but I know that Alex thinks this thread is of marginal topicality and he specifically does not want it to be a discussion of books. Everything should be in the context of book recommendations.

"Swamplandia" by Karen Russell. It is one of the 3 books recommended to the Pulitzer Prize committee for best fiction of 2011 which no award was given. I am about 100 pages into it and have yet to get a handle on the author's style of writing. It will come to me but the question is: when?

A new book young Bogleheads might be interested in is Zac Bissonnette's "How to Be Richer, Smarter, and Better-Looking Than Your Parents." The teenage grandson of a friend of mine liked it (Bissonnette is 23, so that's one reason he read it) so I skimmed over his copy and thought it looked pretty solid, though I was surprised when he wrote: "I am part of a tiny, fringe cult of people who think we should only buy cars with cash." Did we Bogleheads who pay cash for our cars know we were part of a tiny, fringe cult?

Last edited by Fallible on Sun Jul 01, 2012 6:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Fallible wrote:A new book young Bogleheads might be interested in is Zac Bissonnette's "How to Be Richer, Smarter, and Better-Looking Than Your Parents." The teenage grandson of a friend of mine liked it (Bissonnette is 23, so that's one reason he read it) so I skimmed over his copy and thought it looked pretty solid, though I was surprised when he wrote: "I am part of a tiny, fringe cult of people who think we should only buy cars with cash." Did we Bogleheads who pay cash for our cars know were were part of a tiny, fringe cult?

Fallible wrote:A new book young Bogleheads might be interested in is Zac Bissonnette's "How to Be Richer, Smarter, and Better-Looking Than Your Parents." The teenage grandson of a friend of mine liked it (Bissonnette is 23, so that's one reason he read it) so I skimmed over his copy and thought it looked pretty solid, though I was surprised when he wrote: "I am part of a tiny, fringe cult of people who think we should only buy cars with cash." Did we Bogleheads who pay cash for our cars know we were part of a tiny, fringe cult?

Read Eric Kandel's new book, "Age of Insight." Kandel, a neuroscientist and Nobel winner, turns art historian to encourage a dialogue between art and science in order to “grasp the nature of the mind” and possibly even shed light on the nature of creativity. Wonderful book, crystal clear writing by this super scientist/intellectual.

Seriously, I've never read it before. I'm a little past the halfway mark. Have learned more about the 19th century whaling industry than I ever wanted to know. Based on what I've read so far, if I was a whale, I'd hire a lawyer and initiate a class action suit against Herman Melville. The things he says about whales are terrible, not the least of which that he keeps calling them "fish."

On the bright side, it's a page turner, if you're willing to wade through all the interruptions to the plot. It's fun to watch Melville striving to write the great American novel. Sure it's over the top, but it's worth it when the author succeeds.

The Last Campaign. It describes the 1948 Presidential campaign- we might have a bit of a re-run of this campaign in 2012 ( i.e., "the Do-Nothing Congress")Shawcroft( these are just observations about a very historic campaign)

Very good novel..especially if you are interested in history of Peru. The book won an award for best Spanish language novel back in 2005, but the English translation just came out on Kindle about a month ago. It was initially available on Kindle only, but I just checked Amazon and looks like the print version is available starting today.

Now starting Fortune's Formula by William Poundstone. I've been reading about the Kelly Criterion based on some previous discussions on this forum, and, in the process, I came across several recommendations for this book. I am enjoying it so far.

"Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful." - George E. P Box

I have a zoology degree and I think it's fine. Melville defines "whale" as "a spouting fish with a horizontal tail," and I think that's a pretty good definition.

I don't know when or why people suddenly decided that the word "fish" should only be used in the technical sense to mean "superclass Pisces." As silly a restricting the word "power" to mean "force times distance over time." As a matter of fact, Merriam-Webster Online here gives "an aquatic animal" as the first definition of fish. It is only for definition #2 that they get into "cold-blooded strictly aquatic craniate vertebrates that include the bony fishes and usually the cartilaginous and jawless fishes and that have typically an elongated somewhat spindle-shaped body terminating in a broad caudal fin, limbs in the form of fins when present at all, and a 2-chambered heart by which blood is sent through thoracic gills to be oxygenated."

The broad meaning of the word "fish" is perfectly good. We speak of "the whale fishery," not the "whalery." We also speak of the "shrimp fishery" and "shellfish." And outside of a biology class I've never heard anyone refer to a starfish as a "sea star," have you?

On the bright side, it's a page turner, if you're willing to wade through all the interruptions to the plot.

It's even better if you find whales interesting.

It's fun to watch Melville striving to write the great American novel.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was impressed by it. In "A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys," in one of the interludes the narrator is telling the kids about the literary Berkshires and mentions "On the hither side of Pittsfield sits Herman Melville, shaping out the gigantic conception of his 'White Whale,' while the gigantic shape of Graylock looms upon him from his study-window." But it didn't actually become recognized as an important book until the 1930s or thereabouts. A version illustrated by Rockwell Kent was published by the Book-of-the-Month Club was a best-seller, but the illustrations contributed to it--so much so that people sometimes erroneously referred to "Moby-Dick, by Rockwell Kent."

Please don't tell me how it ends. I want to be surprised.

Ishmael and Queequeg get married and live happily ever after.

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Oh, I finally did finish Bleak House (Charles Dickens). Despite my sig I've only read a handful of his books--let's see: ones I was required to read in high school or college, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, and Hard Times. Oliver Twist because I was curious, having seen the musical. A Tale of Two Cities, because everyone else read it in school and I didn't. I enjoyed Stephen King and Peter Straub's Black House and tried to read Bleak House back when I read it, but couldn't get into it then.

This time I was able to, and find it to be quite a good read. I'd known about Krook's death by spontaneous combustion, but didn't realize what what a dramatic scene he makes of it. The poor little slum kid, Jo, is genuinely moving and his death scene moistened my eye even though I knew Dickens was pulling my strings. I hadn't realized that Bleak House, the house itself, is not bleak--but almost everything else in the book is.

Best passage is the one where Phil explains how he doesn't know his age, but knows that it "has an eight in it:"

"How old are you, Phil?" asks the trooper, pausing as he conveys his smoking saucer to his lips.

Mr. George, slowly putting down his saucer without tasting its contents, is laughingly beginning, "Why, what the deuce, Phil—" when he stops, seeing that Phil is counting on his dirty fingers.

"I was just eight," says Phil, "agreeable to the parish calculation, when I went with the tinker. I was sent on a errand, and I see him a-sittin under a old buildin with a fire all to himself wery comfortable, and he says, 'Would you like to come along a me, my man?' I says 'Yes,' and him and me and the fire goes home to Clerkenwell together. That was April Fool Day. I was able to count up to ten; and when April Fool Day come round again, I says to myself, 'Now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' April Fool Day after that, I says, 'Now, old chap, you're two and a eight in it.' In course of time, I come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight in it. When it got so high, it got the upper hand of me, but this is how I always know there's a eight in it."

Murakami is one of my favorite writers. This will be the fifth novel of his that I've read, having now finished Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and After Dark.

Union Pacific - The Reconfiguration: America's Greatest Railroad from 1969 to the Present by Maury Klein.

This is volume 3 of Klein's look at the Union Pacific (celebrating it's 150th year of operation). The volume looks into the issues facing the railroad industry in the late 60/s / early 70's and how UP steered around the mess.

This is volume 3 of Klein's look at the Union Pacific (celebrating it's 150th year of operation). The volume looks into the issues facing the railroad industry in the late 60/s / early 70's and how UP steered around the mess.

Ed

The Union Pacific? Wasn't that a bit of a mess in itself--Hoax Ames and the Credit Mobilier scandal?